A Near Miss

Outside, Long Shot saw Near had settled into exploding the same nearby hilltop over and over again. How that particular hill might have offended Near was anypony's guess, although if she had to bet, Long would have gone with 'it existing' as the main reason. After several minutes and a now much shorter nearby hilltop, Near abruptly stopped making explosions and sat down.

"I'm real sorry Near," Spleens said, "I didn't think the poison joke would do anything like that to you, I just figured it would make you wet the bed or something."

"The thing about poison joke," Near replied, "is that if it can prank more than one pony just by changing its effects, it will." Looking to the setting sun, she added, "Time to start on dinner, don't you think?"

Long pondered the sunset for a moment before responding, "Yeah, I guess. Would you ple-" she stopped talking once she turned around and found out that she would be preparing dinner solo. "That's fair I guess," she thought as she got to work.

The next morning Near Miss was the first one up, and once she was done watering the mud, she ventured down the hill they were on to find the mud had dried somewhat, and what wasn't dry had frozen firmly enough to start traveling again. Excited at the prospect of movement, Near ran back to the caravan.

"Guys!" She called out after slamming the caravan door open, "The mud froze overnight! We can start moving again!"

Spleens was up in a flash, sprinting to the valley floor where she proceeded to dance on the frozen ground. Even Long Shot was up and out of the caravan in a record minute and a half to prod at the ground sleepily with a hoof.

By the time the novelty of solid ground had worn off somewhat, Near had already started on breakfast, hay bacon with hay bacon garnish and a side of hay bacon. While they waited, Spleens gently milked Long Shot, who softly mewled as she laid on her back, hind legs twitching occasionally. By the time the hay bacon was ready, there were three glasses of lunar pegasus milk waiting for them along with an almost conscious lunar pegasus.

"Is the road we were using still there?" Spleens asked between bites.

"Yup!" Near answered pointing to the road around two hundred trots away, "and it seems pretty level too."

After coming to her senses, Long Shot had scarfed down her breakfast, and barely paused to thank Near for cooking before she took flight to survey the area. The sky was clear and bright as she gained altitude, eventually leveling off at around a kilotrot. From up there, she could see what looked like the end of the Badlands in the distance, where the light brown dirt faded into a grassy green. Finally feeling alert and fully awake, Long slowly glided her way back down.

Near and Spleens had finished eating and were looking over the map by the time Long rejoined them. "We're going to have to deal with this series of deep gorges over the next few days, but it seems like most of them have bridges so it shouldn't be too difficult. It looks like the gorges start just after we leave the Badlands, which should happen either late today or early tomorrow." Near finished her milk before continuing, "So are you two ready to finally get moving again?"